Текст книги "Whiplash"

Автор книги: Dale Brown

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Текущая страница: 28 (всего у книги 31 страниц)

70

Northern Iran

THE VOICE DIRECTED DANNY AND HERA TO AN ABANDONED farm about a mile from the air base. Danny parked just off the road, then led Hera as the Voice guided them down an old creek to a farm lane where they climbed up a hill about a half mile from the rear of the complex. Until they crested the hill, they saw nothing. Hera kept wanting to complain that they were going in the wrong direction, and struggled to keep her mouth shut.

And then, suddenly, they saw floodlights in the distance. They didn’t even need their night glasses to see what was going on.

“It’s a missile,” said Hera. “Oh my God.”

ABERHADJI WATCHED AS THE WARHEAD WAS BOLTED INTO place. The process was delicate—not because of the warhead, which would remain inert until after it was launched, but because of the rocket fuel and oxidizer being pumped into the tanks.

Fueling the missile was not quite as easy as loading a truck with gasoline. The liquids had to be carefully monitored; their temperature and pressures were critical, and a spark in the wrong place would ignite a fireball. While Aberhadji’s team had perfected quick fueling methods, his short notice added another level of difficulty. Still, he knew it should take only a little more than an hour before they were ready to launch—a prep time that would be the envy of the best-trained crew in the West.

“Imam, the warhead is ready to be coded,” said Abas, the head technician.

The code was part of the fail-safe lock that prevented unauthorized use of the warhead. It allowed the bomb to arm itself following launch. Without it, the warhead was simply a very heavy piece of complicated metal.

Aberhadji moved quickly to the panel at the side of the warhead. The code was entered on a very small number pad. The display screen was a small panel sixteen boxes long. It displayed an X as each number was pressed in. When the boxes were finally filled, Aberhadji had to press the unmarked bar at the bottom to enter them. He had only two tries. If the number was entered incorrectly a third time, the fusing circuit was designed to overload, rendering the weapon useless.

He pressed the bottom bar. The display flashed. The X’s turned to stars.

They were ready to go.

“How much longer?” he asked Abas.

“An hour and ten minutes, if nothing goes wrong.”

Aberhadji nodded. He could barely stand the suspense.

71

Imam Khomeini International Airport

FROM THE LAYOUT OF THE AIRPORT GROUNDS, NURI THOUGHT it might be possible to set up an ambush on the utility road at the eastern side; it was long and, according to the satellite photos and schematic MY-PID reviewed, generally deserted. But as soon as they neared the airport, he saw his plan would never work. There were police cars and Iranian army vehicles all around the grounds. Lights flashed; cars were being stopped at the entrance.

“What the hell’s going on?” asked Flash.

“Yeah, good question.” Nuri continued past the access road. They had weapons and surveillance gear; there’d be no chance of sneaking past a search. He drove two miles until he saw a small grocery store off the main road. He pulled off and drove around the back to the Dumpster.

A man was sitting in front of it, smoking a cigarette.

“I thought if you were Muslim you weren’t allowed to smoke,” said Flash.

The man threw away the cigarette and scurried inside. But Nuri didn’t want to take a chance, so he drove through the lot and back onto the highway, continuing until he found another store. This time there was no one in back. They stashed the weapons midway down in the Dumpster, then went back to the airport.

A pair of policemen stopped them at the gate and asked for ID. As soon as he saw Nuri’s Italian passport, he had them both get out and open the trunk. His partner went through the interior, tugging at the seat cushions and rifling through the glove compartment.

“What are these?” asked the policeman, pulling one of the transponders from Nuri’s overnight bag. It was a booster unit for the bugs.

“We use them to receive signals from the pipeline, when it is examined.” Nuri handed the man a business card. “You would be interested in hearing about this. It is very high technology. Holes in the pipe cannot be detected by the human eye. But even a small leak could cost very much money. Imagine if the faucet in your house were to drip all day. What a—”

“Your Farsi is very good,” said the man, handing him back the passport. “Have a nice trip back to Italy.”

“What is going on?” asked Nuri. “Was there a robbery?”

“No, no. The president is taking off in a few hours. The airport must be kept secure.”

Nuri and Flash got back in the car. About halfway down the main entrance road, Nuri took a right onto a utility road that would swing him back around to the hangar area. They got only fifty yards before they found the way blocked by an army truck.

“I have to go to Terminal Five,” Nuri told the soldier.

The man waved him away, directing him to turn around. Nuri tried arguing, but the man wouldn’t even listen.

“Now what?” asked Flash as they turned back.

“There’s another access road on the other side of the airport,” said Nuri. “We’ll try that.”

WHEN THE POLICEMAN WALKED OVER TO THE TAXI, TARID leaned forward from the back and showed the man his ID. The notation in the corner made it clear he was with the Revolutionary Guard. The officer frowned, then waved the cab through.

The soldier blocking the route to the hangars was not so accommodating. He glanced at the ID, then told the driver he couldn’t pass.

Finally Tarid got out and demanded that the soldier call his superior officer. The man asked to see the ID again. He pretended to study the photo and the official designation, which showed that Tarid was the equivalent of a colonel in the regular army. While he did this, he contemplated the consequences of displeasing a high-ranking Guard official. If Tarid made life miserable for his captain, things would become very uncomfortable. The Guard was notorious for that.

“Well?” said Tarid.

The soldier handed back the ID, then went and pulled the truck out of the way.

It was only as he walked back to the cab that Tarid realized he was being followed; a dark-colored SUV was sitting about fifty yards up the road. It was too far away for him to make out who was in the front seat, but he was convinced that the men who had given him the package had followed him here.

In fact, he was half right; the man with the flashlight had followed him by himself, ordered by Aberhadji to make sure he completed the mission.

Killing him so he wouldn’t be a witness was his own idea. His companion would take care of the man in the red jacket later on.

The sight of the truck rekindled Tarid’s paranoia. Once more he was convinced he was about to be killed. But rather than being filled with fear or paralyzed by his doubts, as he had been earlier, he began getting angry. The emotion grew steadily, and by the time the cab reached Hangar Five, he was livid. A dam had broken, and as it rushed out, his fear had drowned itself, leaving only the raw emotion.

“Wait for me,” he barked at the cab driver, slamming the door behind him. The bag’s strap caught against the door. He pulled it sharply, spinning it hard against the fender as he freed it.

A man with a red jacket ran toward him.

“Careful,” he said.

“Careful yourself,” said Tarid. He threw the bag to him.

The man caught it, cringing. “You idiot,” he said. “Get the hell out of here.”

“The hell with you, too.”

Tarid whirled and went back to the cab.

“Is that the president’s plane?” asked the cab driver timidly after he got in.

Tarid hadn’t even realized what was going on. Suddenly the fear returned.

“I have no idea,” he muttered.

NURI AND FLASH FOUND THE OTHER ACCESS ROAD CUT OFF as well. The closest they could get was a small building used by a food services company as a short-term warehouse. They parked the car and went around to the side, looking at Hangar Five with a set of binoculars. Nuri saw the cab drive up, and saw Tarid get out of the car, but his view was blocked and he couldn’t see what Tarid was doing.

The Voice, however, picked up their conversation. The exchange left Nuri baffled. The man in the red coat was afraid as well as angry, but of what?

Careful.

What would Tarid have to be careful of? Certainly not of papers or computer records.

If he’d had nuclear material in the bag—a distant possibility, Nuri thought—there’d be no danger of it going off. Though perhaps the other man wouldn’t know.

A conventional bomb?

With the president’s plane nearby…

“You drive,” Nuri told Flash. “We want to follow the cab, but not too close.”

“Sure. But what are you doing?”

“I’m going to dig out our backup chemical sniffer and calibrate it. Then we have to figure out some way of getting into that cab right after Nuri gets out.”

72

Washington, D.C.

PRESIDENT TODD STUDIED THE VIDEO IMAGE ON THE SCREEN at the front of the White House Situation Room. It was remarkably clear, considering the vast distance it was being transmitted from, let alone the conditions.

There was no doubt. The image was of a medium-range intercontinental missile, topped with a heavy warhead.

“We have to guess at what’s in the warhead,” said Jonathon Reid, narrating the impromptu slide show from Room 4 at the CIA campus in Virginia. “But given everything else we’ve found, I really don’t think there’s much doubt.”

The image was coming from the Owl that Danny and Hera had launched. The weapons analysts at the CIA had identified the missile in the video as a member of the No-Dong A family, a North Korean weapon capable of carrying a nuclear warhead 2,000 to 2,900 miles.

“A small number were supposedly lost during testing and destroyed, according to the official antiproliferation documents,” said Reid dryly. “I would suggest that the documents are not entirely correct.”

“Do we have any indication of a target?” asked Todd.

“None,” said Reid. “But I think we can assume it’s Israel. It would be in retaliation for the strike on the plant in the Sudan.”

“I don’t think we have the whole picture here,” said Secretary of State Alistair Newhaven. “I agree that Israel is the logical target if this is being loaded with a nuclear warhead. But I think we’re leaping to conclusions.”

“They’re not going to spell out their intentions,” said Herman Edmund, the CIA director. “Clearly, the missile is going to be launched. And only a fool would think the warhead won’t be nuclear.”

“They’re trying to disrupt the Iranian president’s rapprochement with the U.S.,” said Secretary of Defense Lovel. “I’ve warned about this for months.”

Lovel had taken a hard line against Iran since the beginning of the administration.

“If that’s the case,” said Newhaven, who agreed with the theory, “then it argues that the missile isn’t nuclear. It’s a demonstration of their ability, but not a suicidal attack. Any nuclear attack would be suicidal, and the Iranians are not suicidal.”

“Not all Iranians,” said Lovel. “But maybe just these ones.”

“Mr. Reid, when will the missile launch?” asked President Todd.

“Again, we have no direct intelligence on their intentions. Typically, it can take anywhere from a few hours to a dozen to prepare for a launch, depending on the personnel and conditions.”

“Most likely it will be at the far end of the spectrum,” said Michael Bacon, the National Security Advisor. “At least twelve hours, if not longer. The Iranians in the past have taken upward of a day to prep their launches once they’ve reached the ready stage, and I doubt we’re dealing with a crack crew here.”

“I’m not sure about that,” said Reid. “In theory, the missile could be fueled very quickly, especially if the safety protocols were disregarded.”

“This isn’t the main government force here,” said Bacon. The information gathered by Whiplash and NSA intercepts seemed to indicate that the missile had been developed by a small group within the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, possibly one at odds with the organization’s legitimate leadership. “If they’re a splinter group, they’re not going to have the same level of expertise.”

“On the contrary,” said Reid. “They’ll be highly motivated and competently trained. They may be the elite of the elite.”

“I still believe there’s time to demand that the Iranian government take action,” said the Secretary of State. “That’s a better solution in the long run.”

“Nonsense,” said Bacon.

“We cannot let them point a missile at Israel—at anyone,” insisted Lovel. “Especially after they’ve declared that they don’t have any.”

“But this isn’t the government,” said Newhaven. “It should be handled in a completely different way. If their government stops it—”

“Would they? And in the meantime, we’re risking a nuclear catastrophe,” said Lovel. “Millions of people will be killed.”

“That’s not my point. I’m not in favor of not acting. I’m just saying that we should first encourage the Iranians to move, then act if they don’t. If we have twelve hours—”

“Gentlemen, let’s not get sidetracked here,” said the President. “We are going to remove this threat. We are going to assume it is real. And we are not going to rely on the Iranians. That would be too risky. All that will do is make our mission harder.” She looked to the right, at the screen showing the Pentagon ready room. “How long before the bombers are ready?”

“We can have planes in the air within the hour,” said the Defense secretary. “A pair of F-15Es are being loaded with weapons in Saudi Arabia as we speak. They’ll have four F-15Cs as escorts, along with two F-16s for antiair suppression as necessary. Additional Navy flights will be available from the Gulf. We’re still working on some of the support details.”

“How long before they reach Iran?” asked the President.

“Roughly an hour after they take off,” added Lovel. “With the Iranian air defense system not on high alert, their task is…robust, but not impossible.”

“What if they’re on alert?” asked Reid.

“Then things become trickier. Their aircraft and surface-to-air missiles will be ready to launch. We’ll have a second package of attack and fighter aircraft ready to go as a backup. But our people have trained for this. We will accomplish the mission, Mrs. President. I’m confident.”

“What happens when we bomb the warhead?” asked the President.

Lovel turned to an Air Force general who was an expert on nuclear accidents. The general began by citing a study that had been done in 1975. To everyone’s relief, Todd cut him short.

“General, the executive summary,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am. Sorry. Predicting with one hundred percent certainty is impossible. But—if the warhead is constructed properly, there will be little harm to it. The rocket fuel and the oxidizer explode, of course. You have a fire, etcetera.” The general waved his hand, dismissing the cataclysm.

“What about the explosive lens around the bomb?” asked the Secretary of State.

The general gave him a condescending smile. “We don’t really know what sort of design they’ve used, Mr. Secretary. Now I agree with you that it’s very likely that they’ve followed the North Korean mode. However—”

“Short answer, please,” said the President impatiently.

“All nuclear weapon designs do contain explosives. However, as a general rule, they can’t just explode. But if that were to happen, almost surely the warhead won’t be ignited.”

Reid noted the disclaimer—almost surely—but said nothing to the others. The CIA had concluded that the explosives would survive a bomb strike without igniting, citing accidents in the 1950s.

“The worst case scenario—short of something we don’t know about with the material,” said the general, referring to the uranium, “would be the explosives in the design getting on fire. But even if that happened—and I have to say it’s highly unlikely—even if that happened, the weapon would not go critical.”

“We have to recover the material once the missile is destroyed,” said Todd. “How do we go about that?”

“I don’t know that that’s feasible,” said Lovel.

“Will the material be scattered?” Todd asked.

“No ma’am,” said the weapons expert. “I mean, again to give you a definitive answer would require quite a lot of study, but the nature of—”

“Thank you. You’ve told me enough,” said Todd. She looked around the table, then back at the screen. “Charles, how do we get the remains of the warhead? What’s our plan for that?”

“We have a Delta Force unit in the region,” said Lovel. “They can recover it.”

“The material is not necessarily dangerous,” added Reid. Contrary to popular belief, an unexploded bomb presented no health hazard. “And as it happens, there is one person in the region who not only has been trained to deal with warheads, but has had considerable experience doing so.”

“Who?” said Todd.

“Danny Freah. The colonel disarmed a live nuclear warhead a few seconds before it exploded in South America during his Dreamland days,” said Reid. “And before that, he was tasked to a team that secured weapons following the fall of the Soviet Union.”

“Before he went on to bigger and better things,” said Lovel admiringly.

“Then the colonel is the person we want handling it,” said President Todd. “Fortune has put him in exactly the right spot.”

“There is one consideration,” said Reid. “He’ll have to be close to the bomb site when it is bombed. The rocket fuel can be quite unpredictable when it explodes. And it does explode with quite a lot of force.”

“Then he’ll have to keep his distance,” said Todd dryly. “I would assume he knows that better than we do.”

The President turned back to the Pentagon feed.

“Charles, work with Mr. Reid and Ms. Stockard to get a plan together. And get those bombers airborne as quickly as possible. I don’t care what it takes. We’re stopping that missile.”

73

Tehran

TARID’S HEAD CLEARED AS THE CAB TOOK HIM BACK TO Tehran. He had to leave Iran; even if Aberhadji wasn’t out to kill him, not even the Guard would be able to protect him from the army’s wrath when the president’s plane blew up. Whatever life remained to him, it was as a permanent exile.

The Sudan was the first place they would look; then they would get to Somalia, Egypt, and Kenya, hunting him down at the other parts of the network he had tended. Turkey wouldn’t be safe, either.

His best bet at the moment was Europe, though the thick Iranian spy networks would make staying for a long term problematic.

The one thing he had was money, squirreled away in Swiss and German bank accounts. The first step would be to rearrange those accounts, in case Aberhadji had been on to the skimming. And then he would decide where to go and what to do.

Leaving by plane was out of the question. He’d have to sneak over a border on foot, or take a boat.

Calm settled over him as they drove to the city. It was only a veneer, a brittle shell that could be broken by even a light shock, but he was functioning again. Even if he was only a shadow of the man he’d been—or thought he’d been—in the Sudan, he was still a capable and formidable opponent, a man who had lived by his wits for many years in the most hostile environments.

He had told the cab driver to take him to the hotel, but that was only to give him a destination to head toward while he figured out where he really should go. He finally decided that his best plan would be to take a bus westward, to the coast. But realizing the stations in the city could easily be watched, he had the driver turn around and head west, to a small suburban station he knew.

By now the cabbie was scared of his passenger and complied without protest. He’d stop talking since the man with the gun had flagged him down. His only thoughts were of his two children. He wanted desperately to remain alive; if he died, there was every chance his wife would take them to live with his in-laws.

“WHERE’S HE GOING?” FLASH ASKED NURI AS THEY LEFT the highway.

“No idea. Maybe he has to report back in. Maybe he’s running away.”

“Why didn’t he just get on a plane at the airport, then?”

“Don’t know.”

Flash checked his pistol, double-checking that no one had messed with it in the brief time it had been out of his possession. They’d swung back to grab their gear; he’d hoped to get something to eat as well, but the shop had closed.

Nuri leaned over and glanced at the fuel gauge. They were starting to run low.

Especially in the dark, the towns around Tehran looked similar to the close-in towns around capitals in the West, with clusters of apartment blocks punctuated by small lots of single-family houses. Except for the spirals of the mosques lit by spotlights in the distance, they could have been practically anywhere in the developed world, at the edge of Brooklyn or Naples or Moscow, Istanbul, Berlin.

“Maybe he’s looking for a McDonald’s,” joked Flash. “I could use one of them myself.”

“You’re not full from dinner?”

“There’s always room for a Big Mac.”

“There’s no McDonald’s in Iran.”

“Shame.”

The Voice told Nuri that Tarid’s cab was stopping three blocks ahead. Flash closed the distance just in time to see Tarid leaning in to pay off the driver. He was in front of a bus station.

“Get out and get the cab,” Nuri told Flash. “Have him stop two blocks down.”

“Tarid’s going to see me.”

“Don’t worry about it. We have to scan the interior. We don’t need him anymore.”

Flash opened the door and got out, walking briskly toward the cab. Tarid turned, saw him, then darted in front of the cab, running across the street to the bus station.

“I need a ride,” said Flash in English.

The taxi driver pretended he didn’t understand. Before he could start away, Flash grabbed and opened the rear door.

Sure he was about to be killed, the driver stepped on the gas. Flash threw himself into the taxi, diving into the backseat and pulling himself up. The driver swerved down a side street, then back up another.

The tourist gig wasn’t working. Flash decided to take a different approach.

He pulled out his pistol and placed it at the man’s neck.

“Stop,” he told him.

The driver started to shake his head.

“Stop.”

Flash pressed the barrel harder against the driver’s flesh. He reached into his pocket and tossed the bills he had on the front seat. It was a considerable sum, more than the driver ordinarily made in a month.

“Stop,” said Flash, poking the gun hard into his neck.

The bills allayed just enough of the driver’s fear to make him stop.

Nuri pulled up behind him and sprang from the car. He carried the sniffer in both hands, holding it in front of him as if it were a divining rod.

“Do not worry,” he told the man in Farsi as he pushed the detector toward the open window. “This will not harm you or your car. We will leave you alone in just a minute.”

He didn’t get a read. He opened the door to the back, bending in as Flash slid to the side, still holding the gun at the man’s neck.

The detector was set to pick up traces of chemicals used in Semtex and other plastic explosives. It was negative; there were no traces in the cab.

Though extremely sensitive, the sniffer could be defeated. A very careful bomb maker working in a clean room could, for example, wrap the explosive very securely and make sure that there were no stray traces on the bag. But in Nuri’s experience, that simply didn’t happen; bombs were almost never constructed that carefully.

“Nothing?” asked Flash.

Nuri started to back out of the vehicle. The president’s plane would be inspected before it took off. The Iranians undoubtedly had equipment similar to his, though not as powerful nor as portable.

So a plastic explosive would be discovered.

Fuel, though…

“Wait here,” Nuri told Flash. He stepped to the side of the road, closer to the street lamp, and recalibrated the device. Then he took a second sample from the back, pushing the sniffer right against the floor.

There was a very slight hit of an ammonia compound.

“You use rocket fuel to power your taxi?” Nuri asked the man.

The cab driver was baffled. Nuri reached into his pocket for some bills.

“I already paid him a fortune,” said Flash, getting out the other side.

Nuri tossed the money on the man’s lap anyway. “Forget tonight,” he told him. “It will be the best for you. Go home to your family and forget everything else.”

TARID RAN INSIDE THE BUS STATION. THERE WERE ONLY TWO buses at the queues, and neither was ready to leave. He glanced at the empty driver’s seat of the one at the head of the line, thinking he might steal it. But a bus would be too easy to follow, and besides, he wasn’t sure if he could even drive it. He trotted in front of it, crossing to the other side of the platform.

As he reached the other side, he saw a man walking briskly into the station across from him, his hand in his pocket. Tarid ducked behind a closed newsstand, moving to the opposite end. He started to look around the corner, but stopped as he heard the footsteps; the man was running toward him.

Tarid turned. The station had a low cement wall on the other side of the bus queue, with several openings to a nearby parking lot. He sprang toward it.

As he did, a shot rang out.

“THEY’VE PUT A BOMB ON THE IRANIAN PRESIDENT’S PLANE,” Nuri told Reid as he got back into the car. “It has some sort of fuel in it—they’re probably going to set it into one of the fuel tanks or the wing area.”

“You’re sure?” asked Reid.

“There was some sort of fuel in whatever Tarid carried to the airport,” said Nuri. He was using the Voice to connect to Reid’s CIA phone, and there was a slight but noticeable delay as the transmissions synced. “I’m guessing at everything else.”

Flash backed the car up into a nearby driveway, then drove back toward the bus station.

“Where is your subject now?” asked Reid.

“He looks like he’s going on a bus ride. I’m going to follow. We may have a chance to grab him.”

“That may not be wise.”

“He’d be a great source.”

“You’ll have trouble getting him out. We may not even be able to get you out.”

“We’ll see what happens,” said Nuri. “I’ll be back.”

“Hey—that SUV is up on the curb,” said Flash. “And it wasn’t there before.”

Nuri realized it was similar to the truck that the man with the flashlight had been sitting in at the complex. He didn’t even need the Voice to make a comparison.

“Stop the car,” said Nuri. He grabbed the door handle. “Come on. Quick.”

TARID FELT THE BULLET HIT HIM IN THE LEG. THE PAIN FELT absurdly minimal, barely a sting from a bee. He was even able to stay on his feet, running behind a car and throwing himself down as two more shots sailed over his head.

It was only when he hit the ground that the real pain began. His leg felt as if it had been twisted below his knee. It was on fire. Then it seemed that something had grabbed his calf. It was a lobster claw, gripping and twisting.

He started to get up but his leg betrayed him. He no longer had control over it.

He was going to die here, in a parking lot outside of Tehran.

What a shame that he hadn’t made love to Simin.

Tarid began pushing himself forward, crawling away.

He heard the footsteps again, louder, coming for him. Desperate, he rolled himself under a nearby car, trying to quiet his breath.

For a few seconds it seemed as if he had escaped. The footsteps grew faint. The lot was silent. Tarid’s head began to float, his body entering protective shock.

Then something grabbed his good leg. He was dragged out from under the car.

The man who’d held the flashlight when he picked up the bomb was standing over him, grinning. He had a pistol in his hand.

Smiling, the man raised the gun to fire.

THE IRANIAN ASSASSIN WAS SO CONSUMED WITH HIS PREY that he didn’t hear Flash and Nuri running into the lot behind him. Nuri went to the left, Flash to the right.

Flash saw him down the aisle, raising his gun to fire.

Flash clamped his left hand to his right, leaning forward slightly—there was no time to think, or even consciously aim; he pointed the gun and fired.

The bullet hit square in the back of the assassin’s head.

Flash ran forward. He gave a double tap of the trigger into the already dead man’s skull, taking no chances.

Nuri raced from the other side of the lot. He slid on one knee next to Tarid.

“They’re going to kill you,” he told him in Farsi. “We will help you escape. Come with us.”

Tarid was in no position to argue. “Allah be praised,” he said, half delirious from the pain and shock.